


I Bet You Didn't Know That I Was Dangerous

by iteration



Category: Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2021-04-17
Packaged: 2021-04-18 22:47:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21847771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iteration/pseuds/iteration
Summary: The one where Chloe used to write romance novels.Now complete!
Relationships: Chloe/June Colburn
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morphosyntactic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphosyntactic/gifts).

> Dear morphosyntactic, thank you so much for this assignment, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed writing it.

_The first time, I was nineteen. I’d thought about it for so long that when she stood up on the tips of her toes and whispered ‘may I kiss you?’ in my ear, my ‘yes’ felt like an understatement._

As soon as June reads the first sentence she’s hooked. She’d meant to finish cleaning out the locker today but she forgets all about that. She’s riveted.

_My hands were at her waist though I didn’t remember putting them there._

She sits down, right there on the floor, and reads the book cover to cover. Some of the sentences make her swoon. Like, literally.

_I wanted to pick her up and make her mine._

When she sets down the paperback she realizes it’s from a stack of three, so she picks up the other two — they’re both way bigger, like fourth Harry Potter book big — and she gets excited at the idea that there’s so much more.

She climbs the stairs back up to apartment 23. She’s let most of the afternoon pass her by, but it’s not that late, she still has some time to get some stuff done with her day. It’s not dark outside yet, maybe she can go pick up some extra decorations! Just - maybe make some coffee first. And maybe read the first chapter from the next book.

_And in that moment - and maybe it is just for a moment - there is order in a world of chaos. You remember what it’s like to feel wonder. Like maybe you thought that feeling was lost, but now it’s found, and the world is full of beauty._

The second and third novels are just as good as the first. Explicit but not lurid, funny, heartwarming. The kind of writing June would love to discuss for hours in a book club, if she had a book club.

“I wish I had a book club.” She tells Chloe, when Chloe finally crashes in fourteen hours later. It’s early morning but it’s still dark. December in New York. Bleh.

Chloe flops down on the couch next to June and starts uncorking a bottle of Gamay. “Ew, why?”

“I dunno. It’s a thing people do.”

“It’s a thing _nerds_ do.” Chloe holds the open bottle out to June, smiling in that sort of manic way, that makes you feel like… like you’re special. Like you’re in cahoots. June thinks, if her mom saw her right now, she would be horrified. She’d be horrified that June is about to drink red wine at 6am, that June is about to drink it straight from the bottle, and that she’s doing it with someone who is wearing a bustier dress. (Or maybe not? Her mom has surprising opinions sometimes.)

But Chloe kinda just called June a nerd, and June knows it isn’t an insult. When she doesn’t like someone, Chloe doesn’t even bother to look in their direction, let alone speak to them. And genuine emotion, as she says, makes her feel uncomfortable. Calling June a nerd is probably the closest she’ll ever get to saying ‘I like you.’ Which is nice.

Anyway June knows how to play at this game. She swallows some wine and tells Chloe, “you’re right, I am a nerd. But you’re hanging out with me, so. What does that make you?”

“A nerd-enabler.” Chloe’s dress is so flippy that it folded up on itself when she flopped onto the couch, and now June can see her underwear. Which - Chloe is wearing underwear. For her that’s practically demure.

“Oh come on, Chloe! You must like books a _little bit_. I found these in your stuff.” June hands the wine back and digs under her blanket nest for the books she found. She holds them out.

Chloe looks at them, and then takes a really long swig from the bottle. Like a really long swig. “Ugh. Where’d you find those?”

“In the locker!”

“Oh. Huh. Well, I don’t have them because I _like_ them. The publishing company sent them. I don’t want those stupid books.”

“A publishing company sent them?”

“Well I certainly didn’t _buy_ them.”

“A publishing company sent you these novels?”

“Well I should _hope so_, I mean I wrote them didn’t I?”

June has to check out of reality for a second so there’s a delay before she responds. “You.” She clears her throat in a really ladylike way. “You wrote them?”

“Obviously!” Chloe sighs loudly. “Didn’t I tell you? I was dating this publishing executive at Tor, and when I asked them for some money they told me they couldn’t just _give_ me money — I mean what the hell, people give me money all the time — but they said that if I wrote a couple thousand words of romance BS they could get me an advance.”

June remembers to breathe. And blink. “Oh.”

Chloe rolls her eyes. “So I wrote them like, a chapter, and they made me sign a contract before they could give me any stupid money!”

June opens and closes her mouth but can’t think of an appropriate answer, so she just nods.

“_Then_,” Chloe rolls her eyes. “I didn’t read the contract — total rookie mistake — but I had to write the entire novel!” She necks the rest of the bottle. “They even made me write sequels, it was _the worst_.”

This must be what hallucinogens feel like. “Sure.”

“Right? T_he worst._” Chloe hands June the empty wine bottle and then stretches, yawning. It’s a dainty, graceful movement, like Snow White.

So Chloe wrote the books June just spent the entire day and entire night reading. The really good, really compelling books June spent the entire day and entire night reading.

“You -”

Before June can think of a single word to say beyond ‘you,’ Chloe turns and looks at her. Her mouth is stained dark red from the wine and her eyes are sparkling from who knows what she’s taken during the night. She smiles in a really irritatingly beautiful way. “I…?”

“You _accidentally_ wrote a pitch for a romance story good enough to get a three book deal?”

“God, June, you always want to talk about the most _boring_ stuff.”

*

“Did you know Chloe was a writer?” June asks James over the phone the next day.

“Of course I knew. Have you found her lesbian stuff yet?”

“Her what?”

“Her lesbian stuff.”

“Her —”

“I’ve got copies, I’ll have Luther send them to you.”

*

_Frances was sitting on the couch when it happened._

_"Truth or dare.” Katie’s text read._

_Frances answered, "Dare." They’d been playing Text Truth or Dare for days, ever since Katie started working nights._

_"Touch yourself.”_

_“Ooh, risqué.”_

_Katie didn’t text back ‘lol’ like Frances thought she would. She said, “right now. Tell me when you're done."_

So Chloe didn’t just write one series of romance novels. She’s written two. One of them is about a man with pale hair and grey eyes named Lawrence, and the love of his life, Jane, who has dark hair and blue eyes. But the second one is about a woman with mousy brown hair andmousy brown eyes named Frances, and the love of her life, Katie, who has dark hair and blue eyes.

June starts reading the second series, she can’t help it.

*

But this is weird, right? Reading lesbian romance novels when you’re not a lesbian isn’t a thing normal people do. Is it?

_Frances thinks about the moment she realized that Katie genuinely wanted to spend time with her. She remembers thinking, ‘I can't believe Katie is real. I can’t believe she wants to be friends with me.” She had that moment one day after realizing that she hadn’t worried about whether she was annoying Katie in at least two hours and also Katie had just asked her to tag along to her office party and... And Frances had had no choice but to conclude that Katie genuinely wanted to spend time with her, and she suddenly felt amazed at the whole world._

So, ok, it’s about two women falling in love, and ok, Chloe wrote it. But June can like new things!

That’s allowed! It’s not like reading it is going to hurt anybody. It’s just a book.

*

James texts her a few days after sending her the second series. “Well?”

“Well what?” June is doing a double shift at the coffee shop, trying to get enough money to visit her parents over the holidays, and she has no idea what James is talking about.

“What do you think?”

“I think a lot of things. Be more specific.”

“DID YOU READ THEM.”

“Oh, the books.”

“YES THE BOOKS. WHAT DO YOU THINK.”

“I’ve only read the first one. It’s fine?”

James doesn’t text back, he calls. “...oh my god.”

“What, what is it, James, what do you want?”

“You like them. _You like Chloe’s books._” It really sounds like he’s talking about something other than books, but June can’t imagine what.

“I just read the first one! I mean - I’m not even finished. I haven’t had time to - I mean I’ve been doing these double shifts, and —”

“Oh my god.” James says again, and hangs up.


	2. Truth or Dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June goes home for Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear morphosyntactic, I enjoyed writing this story so much that I wrote more!
> 
> EDIT (27 October 2020) - made some changes to this chapter, mainly to fix the timeline. The story is the same <3

June goes home for the holidays.

Well, ok, to be accurate: June lurches home for the holidays. She lurches from work to a plane, and from the plane to her childhood home, on December 22nd. It’s 11pm. She’s a wreck. She took every double shift Mark would give her; she even worked that morning. She hasn’t showered, she’s still wearing her uniform. She’s not just tired, she’s gross.

“Oh honey, there you are.”

Connie Colburn gets her hot chocolate, fuzzy slippers, a bubble bath, bed. In that order. Neither she nor June’s dad, thankfully, expect her to be coherent.

She falls asleep in seconds but then wakes up, bleary and confused, just after dawn. The quiet woke her. She’s thirsty.

After getting a glass of water she digs out the Frances and Katie books. The sun rises while she reads the ending of the first one. She’s all tucked in, with the new pajamas her mom gave her.

”Truth or dare?”

Frances gives in. “Truth.”

“What do you want?”

They’re sitting on the couch when she asks, and at first Frances doesn’t understand. “What?”

“What do you want.” Katie leans in close and puts her hand on Frances’s knee. “When you close your eyes and you think of what you want more than anything in the world.”

Frances blurts it out. “I want you to kiss me.”

June swoons, and falls back asleep.

In the morning — the real morning — she wanders from room to room. Her parents are out shopping, she has the house to herself. How has she never noticed how huge her parents’s house is? The refrigerator is so big, June is pretty sure it wouldn’t fit through the door of her NYC apartment. She takes a picture of the kitchen and sends it to Chloe. ‘I think our entire apartment would fit in this kitchen.’ Chloe doesn’t answer.

June decides she needs coffee, and she needs to know what happens in the next novel. So she makes coffee and grabs the book. She gets blankets from the linen closet and builds herself a nest in the living room.

She sends a picture of her blanket nest to send to Chloe. She doesn’t include the novel in the picture. Chloe still doesn’t answer.

In the second book, Frances and Katie have broken up for some mysterious reason the book will, presumably, dramatically reveal at some point. That’s no surprise. What else could it have been about? But instead of Frances being the narrator, it’s Katie. And the mood is different. Like instead of just describing the yearning some of the characters feel, the narration… It’s like the narration itself is yearning. 

Whenever she’s near me I can barely hear what she’s saying over the noise in my head. The roaring, clanging confusion of sounds; all the wants and aches and cravings I can’t make myself stop feeling, all at once. I wish she would look at me, my mind shouts. I wish she would stand closer. I wish she would give me a hint, just a tiny hint, the tiniest most modest hint in the world, that she’s thought about me. And I wish she would make me tell her what I want. The way I made her say it, the first time.

After a while June sets the book down and pads out towards the kitchen for more coffee. Chloe’s books have really messed up her sleeping schedule. Is this what being a New Yorker is like? You read things your friends published and you drink a lot of coffee, and then you visit family in the midwest and they look at you funny.

“Hon? You’re still in your jammies?”

Connie is standing in the kitchen, three bags of groceries in each hand. She looks surprised. The tone in her voice is only about a 3 out of 10 on the concern scale, though, so it’s probably fine. June hasn’t done anything genuinely weird. Her mom is just looking at her like that because…

“Oh.” June looks at the clock. It’s half past eleven, how did that happen? And she still hasn’t gotten dressed. She’s still in pajamas. “I’m sorry, mom, I don’t know, I lost track of time…”

“Oh hon, you must be so tired. What are they doing to you in the big apple?”

June thinks about Chloe handing her a bottle of wine while dawn breaks over New York. “Nothing, mom.”

“How about we all put on our jammies? We can make today a pajama day.”

“Oh, I…”

“Shush, hon, let me baby you.”

“No, it’s ok, I’m not a baby, it’s almost lunchtime, I should be dressed.”

“June Colburn, you’re in my home, now do as I say.”

June nearly bursts out laughing and suddenly it’s fine. Everything is going to be just fine. “Sorry, mom, sorry. I will maintain my pajama status.”

“Good.”

“May I fix us both coffee, honoured matriarch?”

When June makes it back to her blanket nest, she flips the book open, and suddenly, maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s the book, maybe it’s something about how she feels...

But she’s reminded of one day, that first year in New York, when she’d walked into the living room. Chloe had been there, wearing a really big fuzzy sweater on top of pajamas, typing away at a laptop. She’d been wearing glasses. Had she… had she been writing this? This book?

That moment when you’re looking into someone’s eyes and it’s like you just woke up, even though you were standing there the whole time. That moment when all sorts of things go through your mind, things like how much you care about this person and how perfect they are, and how seeing them makes the world seem like a wonderful place, and how you wonder that you ever managed before you knew them. And all those things rush through your mind and it just seems easier, just much, much easier to sum it all up by kissing them. And then, that doesn’t solve the question of whether you should kiss them, but you know that you want to.

She flips over to the front pages and realizes that it published before she ever moved to New York. So: no. But something about that image… was Chloe writing something else??

The rest of the day is uneventful. June helps her mom make cookies, she eats turkey, she watches It’s a Wonderful Life. But when she’s trying to sleep June starts to... well. Well. Her sleep patterns are all over the place. Wearing pajamas all day just made her feel weird, and sure she grew up in this house but she hasn’t been here in months and it’s not really home anymore.

“JUNE.” Chloe bursts through the door of June’s bedroom and throws herself onto the bed.

June, startled, can’t even process what she’s seeing. The bed bounces up and down with Chloe on it, and Chloe — wearing a workboots and overalls with the sleeves rolled up for some reason — picks up June’s teddy bear and boops its nose. Watching her makes June feels fuzzy and emotional. Chloe’s here! Chloe is here on her childhood bed. But why didn’t she text to say she was coming here? Wait - why is she here? Wait - how come June didn’t hear the doorbell ring?

“Chloe! Why are you in Indiana?”

“I’m not! You fell asleep reading my book!” Dream-Chloe says. “And now you’re dreaming about me, you perv.”


	3. How Do I Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you know if you're having a sexual orientation crisis?

In the morning, June types ‘how do I know if I’m having a sexual orientation crisis?’ into her phone.

She’s determined to get her sleeping pattern back on track — December 24th is a totally normal day of the year for doing this, shut up — so it’s 8am and she’s sitting at the kitchen counter. She’s fully dressed. She holds her phone in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, and she types each word steadily, deliberately, into the search bar.

‘How do I know if I’m having a sexual orientation crisis?’ Enter.

She’s wearing a Christmas sweater and it’s fine. This is fine. This is what New Yorkers do. They ask Google perfectly normal, reasonable, hypothetical, questions at 8am on Christmas eve. And then they roll their eyes at the phone when the first search result is ‘you know you’re having a sexual orientation crisis, if just asked, ‘how do I know if I’m having a sexual orientation crisis?’

June thinks: she should do this properly and talk it over with her mom. But she just… It’s just that talking to parents about potential lesbianism doesn’t seem like a Christmas-ey thing to do. Or a thing at all. Not that June has asked, but she gets the feeling that it’s… not a thing.

The characters in the lesbian romance novel definitely aren’t talking over their sexual orientation with their parents. June hasn’t finished reading the second book but so far it’s all tragic misunderstanding and brooding and yearning. And desire. There’s a lot of desire.

Like:

_Katie remembers exactly what it was like to kiss her. It was like releasing, one by one, every protective reflex and trusting Frances. And then like shutting down every part of herself that was alert to the outside world, and being entirely focused on her, on every point of contact, on her breath, her hair, the way she smelled. The way she moved, alive and aware and wanting, wanting -_

Not a single parent-gay child conversation in sight.

June gives up on the google search and heads back up to her room for some serious window seat time. She gets a pile of blankets out from the hall cupboard and even fishes out Mr Blanky, the stuffed toy in the shape of a gruff-looking sailor. She got him when she was eight years old, after Melody Peters from school boasted about reading a ghost story so spooky that even her babysitter had gotten scared. June subsequently asked for a ‘Ghost Book’ at the library and proudly declared that she did not need anyone to read it for her; she could read it all by herself, but she’s become so utterly terrified that she’d been allowed her to sleep with the lights on. The next day, her mother presented her with Mr Blanky. Mr Blanky has the power to help anyone through any kind of book-related challenge. He can also just hang out for companionship. June settles him on one of the cushions in the window seat.

Before settling in she takes a picture of the stack of blankets next to the window and texts it to Chloe. There is so much snow outside and it looks cozy and amazing. Chloe hasn’t answered any of June’s texts but June has decided not to think about that.

She’s more than halfway through the book and there still isn’t any sign of why Katie and Frances broke up — June assumes it was Katie’s fault — but the novel is way more gripping than it has any right to be. Frances, who was kicked out of her apartment in chapter three, has moved in with Katie, only intending to stay a few weeks until she found a new place. But it’s been more than a month.

_Katie has to remind herself, over and over, not to lean towards Frances and kiss her. Has to remind herself not to reach towards her, even just a little bit, even with the tips of her fingers. Has to remind herself not to hope too hard that Frances still loves her. Because that's not the point, it just isn't the point._

Cohabiting with someone you’re attracted to must be a struggle, June thinks. One of those experiences that seem romantic in fiction but in reality are just… a bad idea at best. What is Katie _thinking_? No - what is _Frances_ thinking? Moving in with an ex? Who does that?

Her train of thought doesn’t go any further because her mom shouts, “JUNE! PACKAGE FOR YOU!”

“What is it?” June asks, galloping down the stairs.

Connie is staring down at the address label on a large box. “Well honey, I’m _assuming_ it’s for you.”

The package is addressed to: ‘Whatever, the blonde one I guess’ but the address is correct. June is overcome.

“Thanks, mom.”

In the kitchen, June sets the box down on the counter while Connie fishes out a knife. This doesn’t feel like something she should be doing in front of her mom, but the thought of saying that is unthinkable. If she knew how private this feels, June thinks, her mom would _know_.

The box contains bagels and cream cheese, muffins, cannoli, coffee grains, a coffee grinder, one of those little stovetop espresso makers, and a half bottle of grappa. There is no card.

“Does your friend think we don’t have pastries in Indiana?”

“Um.” June can’t think what to say.

Chloe sent a care package.

“Is this for making coffee?” Connie asks, picking up the espresso maker. “It’s so cute!”

June had just been hoping for a reply to her texts. This is… This is… June has no idea how to process this.

“It was very thoughtful of your friend to send a gift.”

That’s it. That’s exactly it. It was… thoughtful. Chloe has been a writer this whole time, and she is thoughtful.


	4. Katie and Frances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do lesbians even do it, June wants to know? Is there some sort of secret way to let Chloe know “hey if you wanted to kiss me — not as a joke, or because you owed a favour to the neighbour and let him set up cameras, but because you wanted to — you could... like.. that would be ok?”

“JUNE, YOU TOTAL LOSER, COME IN HERE.”

Chloe’s voice can probably be heard three streets over. She’s laughing, her eyes are really really bright, and seeing her makes June feel weird and happy. It’s nice to be back.

June hands her a gift. “Chloe! This is for you!”

It’s a teddy bear and Chloe loves it. She blows air kisses at June. She looks beautiful.

They make hot chocolate with cognac in it. Even if she hadn’t been reading Chloe’s books during the trip; even if Chloe hadn’t sent a care package (a _care package_;) June would’ve been excited about this. She missed her.

*

One time, back when June had barely just moved in, she read an article about the importance of human contact.

“We should hug!” She’d told Chloe, the next time she’d seen her.

The kitchen had been full of fat little briefcases in varying states of beat up-ness, which June had tried to act blasé about. If you live in New York you have to increase your surprise threshold, right? She remembers being confused by Chloe’s outfit, as well: a long-sleeved black top, knee-length black skirt, and opaque black tights.

“You’ve… shrunken the contents of an airport luggage trolley and brought it home? While wearing a stage manager outfit?” June had asked.

“Hmm?” That was when Chloe had opened one of the cases to reveal an oboe.

“Doesn’t matter.” June shakes her head. “Look, Chloe, I wanted to talk to you about, like, hugging?”

That had gotten her attention. “What?” she’d asked, shutting the oboe case with a dramatic _fwump_.

“I read this paper about the therapeutic effects of physical contact —”

Chloe’s face had done something really weird, like she’d been wearing a mask and accidentally let it fall off. June remembers being surprised that it hadn’t make a sound.

“What?”

“We should hug, sometimes.”

“Um. I don’t — sorry, I’ve got to make a call…”

“Shut up and hug me, Chloe.”

*

The way she feels when June thinks she’ll hear from Chloe but doesn’t is… It’s hard to explain. It’s the same way she feels when tries to get Chloe’s attention but doesn’t. She closes her eyes and tries to picture it, to imagine it, so she can find the words —

“Listen, June, I’m gonna need you to focus.” Mark says.

June, startled, realizes she’s at work. “Oh my god, Mark, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He says, putting an arm on her shoulder. “I know how you feel.”

She’s holding muffins and an alarming number of customers are looking at her expectantly and Mark is gone before June can ask, “How? How do I feel?”

*

How do lesbians even do it, June wants to know? Is there some sort of secret way to let Chloe know “hey if you wanted to kiss me — not as a joke, or because you owed a favour to the neighbour and let him set up cameras, but because you wanted to — you could... like.. that would be ok?”

She finally gets to the section of the book explaining why Katie and Frances broke up, and when she reads what happened, June can’t help wondering whether she, like Frances, would ever consider getting back together with someone who only seduced her as a dare. She’s not sure she would. Is it possible to have romantic feelings for someone when they’ve tried to use you? Even if it was only before they knew you?

“Hi June!” Chloe flops down on the other end of the couch.

June marks her spot in the book — over which she’s put a Harry Potter Book 6 dust jacket — with her Winnie the Pooh bookmark. In between the page where Katie goes into an overthinking spiral over Frances wearing a new dress, and the page where Frances makes terrible masturbation choices. The sexual tension is off the scale.

“Uh. Hi!”

Broken up just before the start of the book, Katie and Frances spent most of the book cohabiting in an awkward “will they or won’t they?” pining situation. But it took hundreds of pages for the narration to explain that the _reason_ they broke up is that a coworker told Frances that Katie had seduced her only to prove that she could seduce anyone she wanted. The coworker made it sound like Katie was pretty callous.

“Whatcha thinking about, June?”

Interestingly, although Frances was the one who was wronged — so to speak — Katie is the one who did the actual breaking up. This is described in excruciating detail in flashback. Frances had apologized until she was blue in the face, but Frances’s response had been to be so freaked out that she shut down. Numb. Stopped speaking entirely. Which Katie interpreted as “please leave” and Frances didn’t stop her.

Then… Then, after some surprisingly detailed financial stuff that made the insane situation sound almost plausible, Katie offered Frances a room when she desperately needed one. So. In the book’s timeline, they flirted for a few months, dated for a few months, broke up, and THEN moved in. They have now been cohabiting while broken up for _nearly a year_. Jesus, June thinks. That sounds awful.

How did Chloe come up with that, June wonders? There’s something so real about it. “How did —“

“June?” Chloe’s head is tilted, there’s a look in her eyes like…

June snaps back to reality. Jesus Christ, she nearly just — “Huh?”

“You’re right,” Chloe says.

“I am?”

“You’re right,” There’s a manic gleam in Chloe’s eyes. She hikes up her skirt. “I should’ve worn different underwear with this.”

“What’s happening right now?”

“I know, right?”

Under Chloe’s skirt, she’s wearing electric blue booty shorts with a honey badger print. They’re mesmerizing. June says: “Uh.”

“Right?”

“...Wow.”

“Exactly! That’s what’s wrong with them!” She wriggles like she’s trying to… highlight her point?”

June blinks some more. “What’s... Wrong with them?”

“Nothing. It’s just that it’s a waste if there’s no chance of anyone seeing them.”

“I’m seeing them.”

“Oh, yeah!” Chloe winks. “I guess you are.”

Seriously, how do lesbians do it? How do they - how does a woman flirt with another woman like she means it? More importantly, how does she find out whether another woman is flirting with her?

*

“You mean you haven’t told her yet?” James asks.

Chloe walks into the kitchen in a sexy turtle costume. “Haven’t told me what?”

It’s February 14th and they’ve got tickets to a Valentine’s Day costume party. Which is a thing? June guesses? Anyway they’ve made the following bets about their costumes: (1) Chloe bet she could make any costume sexy. (2) June bet she could make a costume, full stop. (“What like... make it appear in exchange for money?” “No, Chloe. Make it.” “Well aren’t WE little miss Hidden Skills.” “I mean... Except for the wig. I don’t know how to make wigs. I mean, I don’t know how to make them look good.” “I bet.” “Jesus Christ, JUNE. CHLOE. Stop with the nerd talk and pay attention.” “Touchy, touchy, not-the-center-of-attentiony.” “Sorry, James.”) (3) James bet he could make the most run of the mill, average, uninspired theme look good.

“I’m. I don’t —“ June forgets how words work.

Chloe, wearing an outfit guaranteeing that amphibians will now feature in June’s dreams, turns to James. “Haven’t told me what?”

“Hi Chloe! You look super hot. Good job with the turtle shell.”

“Thanks! Haven’t told me what?”

“About your books. June hasn’t told you she’s read your, you know. Your other books.”

Chloe, just when she would normally be flippant, freezes. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even move.

“Oh.” James raises both eyebrows, like he’d just heard something moderately surprising. “_Oh. _Okay I didn’t know that.”

“Know what?” June asks weakly.

Neither of them answers.

James takes a step towards Chloe, and softly, so softly June isn’t sure she’s hearing right, he says “Seriously, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Then he picks up his vampire top hat, gloves, and cape — in which he looks _incredible — _and heads out the door. “Bye Chloe! Bye June!”

An hour later, June is letting herself slide down until she’s half on the couch, half off. Her mermaid costume takes up most of the floor, while her waist-length mermaid wig covers the couch. She stares at the ceiling, and tries to figure it out. Why didn’t she tell Chloe she was reading her novels? Why did she make it weird? Why is this so hard? She just… This is embarrassing.

“You’re good at it,” she tells Chloe. Maybe compliments will snap Chloe out of… whatever this is.

Chloe has been drinking her way through a bottle of grappa. “At what?”

“Writing.”

“Oh.”

The vibe in the apartment is the strangest it’s ever been. James had their costume party tickets but he left and June doesn’t know what that means but Chloe either doesn’t want to go anymore, or she’s forgotten, or... or who knows? June certainly doesn’t. She feels all churned up and weird and they’ve been sitting on the couch, fully costumed, not talking, drinking grappa. Well, one of them drinking grappa.

“Can I have some grappa?”

“No.”

“Ok.”

June’s not sure she’s ever seen Chloe like this. Like her personality has been turned off. As June watches, she tries to get up, only to give up and slump back down because her sexy turtle costume is hard to move around in.

June flaps her mermaid tail. “If I go get you another bottle of grappa, then can I have some?”

“No.”

“You’re really —“ June starts saying before knowing what she’s actually trying to say.

Chloe suddenly snaps: “I’m what? What, June, what am I?”

“You’re really unusual. That kind of writing ability, that you could just whip it out of nowhere like that. That’s unusual, Chloe.”

“UGH.” Chloe rolls her eyes like a kid being forced to eat brussel sprouts and do their homework.

“No I meant it like —“ June grasps at words. “Not unusual like weird, unusual like unique! Like special!”

“Oh _god,_ June, you’re making it worse.” Chloe hands June the bottle, stands up, and starts gesticulating wildly. “I’m so unusual, I’m so UNUSUAL. Blah blah blah. Words words words.”

That’s when June gets it. She gets it that Chloe isn’t doing it on purpose. The fact that she’s unusual is something she puts up with, not something she’s happy about. She doesn’t like it. “You don’t -“

“You know what ‘unusual’ means? It means there’s no one like you. And you know what it means when there’s no one like you? It means you’re all alone.”

*

_When it first started, when they first met, Katie and Frances’s first kiss went like this:_

_“I — here?” Katie stared._

_“Yeah.”_

_“Um.” Katie hadn’t meant to hesitate, she just didn’t … She didn’t know what she was expecting. It wasn’t this._

_“What are you waiting for?” Frances asks, still deadpan. Like she’s asking a test subject._

_“I’m not —”_

_“Do it.”_

_“What?”_

_“Kiss me. Come on, do it.”_

_“Um.”_

_“What are you waiting for?”_

_When Katie kisses her, she kisses like she's abandoning herself to Frances. Like she's handing herself over to Frances to do as she likes. Like she's giving herself over to Frances for safekeeping._

*

“I won’t tell anyone. About the books, I mean. I haven’t told anyone, and I won’t.”

“Whatever.”

“Thank you for trusting me.”

“UGH WHATEVER JUNE.”

*

_"I like your dress," Frances says, when she pulls away. She's still standing at arm's length, but Katie already feels like one giant heartbeat, broadcasting to everyone in the hotel bar how indifferent she isn’t._

_"Thanks, I'm glad you like it," Katie say. She’s gazing into Frances’s eyes but her entire being is focused her hands, because Frances’s hands are holding her own._

_"Are you ok?" Frances asks._

_“I chose this dress before I met you,” Katie says, dumbly._

_Frances laughs._

*

“Hey Chloe?”

“Yeah June?”

“When I said that, what I really meant was, I like you.”

“Oh.” Chloe, who normally looks like she has about five persona-shaped barricades, looks defenceless. And sort of raw. And vulnerable. “Okay.”

“Do you, um, like me?”

“I —“ She looks like she’s about to _cry_.

June stands up and, before she can second guess herself, pulls on Chloe’s arms until they’re standing in front of each other.“I really like you, Chloe.”

“Because I’m so _unique_?”

“Because,” June puts her arms around her, and holds her as tight as she can. “Because when you’re around, I feel like everything is going to be ok.”

Chloe doesn’t hug back, but she doesn’t move away either.

Neither one of them says anything, but their breathing becomes so loud that June can hear it. And to June, just in that moment, it’s like the first time she ever drove a car: somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should have been worried about making a mistake. But she just felt calm.

“Do you like me, Chloe?” June asks for the third time, holding her so tight that really she’s saying it right into Chloe’s skin.

“I—“

“I think you do. I think you’re bad at saying it but you wouldn’t be here right now, with me, if you didn’t.”

Chloe squirms in June’s arms like she wants to her to let go but June just holds her tighter. And tighter. And then, just as June is starting to think she might have been kidding herself, she feels Chloe’s arms move up. She feels her hug her back. And she feels Chloe nod a tentative “yes” into her mermaid wig.

And then suddenly, very suddenly, like in the blink of an eye, June gets mental image of her and Chloe kissing, of her and Chloe whispering things to each other, of her and Chloe climbing over each other on a bed.

“Chloe —“

And Chloe’s lips are on hers.


End file.
